Trio 'grills' Rita, makes barbecue for area needy

Published 7:00 pm, Friday, September 30, 2005

Amid all the desperation and hopelessness Hurricane Rita inflicted on residents in the North Channel area once the storm swept through, a ray of light shined bright along Sheldon Road.

Turning a bad situation into something good, Channelview resident William DeVazier, his brother, Michael DeVazier and friend Derek Holbert, formulated an idea to cook hundreds of pounds of meat and poultry for people in need.

DeVazier, 32, who spent $400 of his money, estimates nearly 2,000 starved and weary people, including law enforcement officers, were helped.

The storm, which swept through the Beaumont-Port Arthur area on Sept. 24 at 2:30 a.m. with 120 mph winds, affected many portions of East Harris County with power outages.

When DeVazier's lights went out, he knew his meat supply would spoil, so the former 14-year Channelview fire fighter packed his belongings and his 12-foot barbecue pit and headed to the Gerland's vacant parking lot.

The list of food included T-bone and rib eye steaks, pork chops, brisket, ribs, chicken, sausage and deer meat from hunting. "I had no light, I was hungry and I had three deep freezers full of food," DeVazier said. "When word got out that food was being given away, I realized it was not going to be a one-man show."

That's when brother Michael, 30, and Holbert, 26, aided in the effort.

"We gave the food to anyone who wanted it. Some came from as far away as the Galleria and brought their own freezers full of meat to be cooked," Holbert said.

The once-in-a-lifetime experience as some of the men describe, began discretely on Sept. 24 about 12 hours after Rita made landfall. With live radio broadcasts throughout the day and a TV news channel airing the event, continued donations of meat and a surplus of wood were abundant.

Subsequently, the trio finished at 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 25, about 12 hours after it had began.

"It was a long night, but we did it because we knew that we were not going to have any power after the storm and we did not want the meat to go to waste," Holbert said.

Although Holbert and Michael weren't part of the biggest evacuation in the nation's history, DeVazier was.

When he returned, the father of a 3-year old boy, Logan Lee, said he was drained and with good reason.

This was his evacuation route.

He evacuated Channelview at 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 22 and got as far as Kenner, La. at 8:30 p.m. He failed to reach where his son and former wife, Jennifer Byrd, had evacuted.

Frustrated with traffic, he decided to return to Texas and rode to Bryan/College Station and arrived on Sept. 23 at 5 p.m. When he came home on Sept. 24, he had no light. In fact, power didn't return to his home until Sept. 27 at 5 p.m.

"I'm not a saint, a hero or anybody special but I do know when people need help," DeVazier said. "We got to meet a lot of great people and their stories were horrible. I hope we did something to make them forget their problems just a little.